News and Views

DREDF Opposes Elimination of Fundamental Protections in California’s End of Life Options Act "In a pending legal case, Shavelson v. California Department of Health Care Services, a terminally ill plaintiff contends the self-administration requirement of California’s End of Life Options Act (ELOA) violates existing anti-discrimination laws on the basis of disability. While the plaintiff is eligible for physician assisted suicide and has the ability to self-administer lethal medication at present, they’d prefer to utilize the option later in the dying process, when self-administration is no longer possible. The lawsuit seeks to pressure California into eliminating the state’s most essential safeguard ...
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Friday, March 25, 2022 The assisted suicide bill, S.1384 (An Act relative to end of life options), moved to the Health Care Financing Committee yesterday.   The clock now starts ticking with the committee having 30 days to process the bill.   However, as we know, the deadline can be extended.   If there is no extension and no action by the committee, the bill is dead in 30 days. Please contact Health Care Financing Committee members to urge them to vote against the bill.   We are working on individual meetings with the Chairs and members.  Committee members are found here:   https://malegislature.gov/Committees/Detail/J24 ...
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November 30, 2021 by Ronald W. Pies, MD for the Psychiatric Times. "Has this slogan crowded out the importance of life with dignity?" ..."over the past several decades, death with dignity has become a kind of battle cry. Owing to the lobbying and proselytizing efforts of groups promoting physician-assisted suicide—euphemistically called, “medical aid in dying”—the phrase, death with dignity, has become nearly synonymous with the deliberate ingestion of lethal drugs, prescribed for people with terminal illnesses.2 In the marketplace of ideas, other modes of dignity in dying—and more importantly, in living—have been crowded out." ...
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